


The Thing with Feathers

by shinesurge



Category: Kidd Commander (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, i'm the author i can do both
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2019-10-07 08:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17362640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinesurge/pseuds/shinesurge
Summary: world cold and hard, daemon warm and soft





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I don't even go here but apparently these universes were made for each other so I have to try at least once. I've read so many goddamn daemon au's I think I can squeak by.
> 
> I have more planned for this! But it's getting long so I thought it would be good to break this off and post.

Desnor was one of relatively few well-mapped and settled provinces in The Sprawl, the only potentially inhospitable thing about it being its state of perpetual winter. Agatha had read about it a bit, the climate and structure being similar to Decodenn's mountain range. Indeed, once they got into the mountains proper the cold set in, so heavy and stern even Noon's curated atmosphere was chilly on the outside decks. Thoughtfully, Lucky Noon built up a lean-to around the pigeon coop on the roof for some extra protection from the elements, and it was here Agatha had spent most of the afternoon. The coop hadn't been cleaned in a while, and she certainly didn't mind the adverse weather. If her luck was good it would snow before they hit the next settlement.

While she worked, Vane lay calmly in the corner of the shack, his enormous head perched neatly on his crossed paws. His tail swished against the concrete floor now and then, usually when one of the birds came close. Doldrum was nestled warmly in the fold of the black Great Dane's neck, and across the room Beaufort perched with interest on Agatha's shoulder while she tore up their house. The rest of the shack was a flurry of activity from other birds who had come to stay in the coop, claws ticking on the floor and feathers ruffling and different calls filling the air. It probably smelled bad in here, Agatha thought. Vane didn't seem to mind any more than she did.

They didn't talk, comfortable enough with the bird noise. Finally, Agatha declared the coop Fit, and set the hatch so the tenants could get back inside when they wanted. Most of them did so immediately, though Doldrum and Beaufort let themselves be carried all the way outside before deciding they'd rather be in bed. That was fair; up here the wind was harsh, Agatha could feel little pinpricks of ice pelting her jacket as they blew past. She and Vane paused to look up at the grey sky, clouds heavy with the threat of precipitation like monochrome paint slung across a canvas. They were high enough for the cloud layers to have more definition, and way off in the west the yellow of the sun was brightening underneath the cover. The visibility was startling, what must have been miles and miles of land laid out like ribbons of green and indigo under a layer of grey cotton, interspersed with white where snow was already falling on far away patches. Normally, The Sprawl was disjunct enough that looking out over the landscape showed at least a couple different biomes, different weather phenomena, but today everything in the world seemed cold and grey. Agatha ached with contentment. She also ached with the confusing mixture of homesickness and overwhelming smallness that had accompanied her new life outside of Decodenn.

Vane sat at her feet, the daemon probably three and a half feet tall even while sitting, and nosed against Agatha's jacket pocket insistently. Agatha, still staring unblinkingly upward, slid her hand from her coat and brushed between Vane's ears, flatting them back with each stroke. She breathed in very deeply, just to get that ozone smell, petrichor, and stash it away for later. She breathed out because this seemed like a good moment for a content sigh, and Vane followed suit. She realized she didn't have to be alone if she didn't want to be; there were others on this ship, there were options now. How nice. She finally tore her eyes away from the sky and the pair of them wandered back inside.

The warm colors of the ship's interior were jarring after the greyscale weather. Agatha and Vane thumped heavily down the tightly curved staircase that led back to the second floor hallway, meandering along with no real motive other than finding someone else.

Soft sounds were coming from Ulrich's workshop. Agatha briefly debated whether she should bother him while he was working, but Vane nudged the door open ahead of her anyway, his clumsy tail thumping against the doorframe as he padded inside.

Ulrich was curled almost double over his desk, the lamp on its arm swung over whatever tiny thing he was working on. He didn't look up when they came in, but Siegfried snapped to attention, bowing their back at the intruders. They relaxed instantly and Agatha secretly thought how silly that was. Like there could even _be_ intruders here.

"Oh!" They abandoned their perch on Ulrich's shoulder to noodle lithely up to Vane, who met them in the middle of the room. Vane crouched down so the skinny ferret could climb up, where they pawed at the base of one massive ear before flinging themself down to rub against his head, like a cat butting against a hand. "Hullo, Vane."

"Mm," the dog's voice was felt more than heard. The loneliness was still there, but it didn't bite quite so much now at the slight weight of the ferret daemon resting on her own.

"Hello," Ulrich intoned softly, still absorbed in his work. He held two pairs of tweezers and had two magnifiers angled over the lens of his glasses; it must be something delicate. Or explosive. Agatha waited patiently with her hand on the doorknob, although the pair of daemons between them seemed to have already decided they were visiting. Vane laid down right where he was, tail thumping the floor just once, like a punctuation. Ulrich took the tools away from the chip he was working on, nodded to himself, and sat back in his chair to look at Agatha properly. As he did, the furry head of an onyx-black mink rose up from his lap to rest her chin on the desk. Ritz, as always, said nothing, and simply regarded Vane and Siegfried with her one-eyed stare. Ulrich absently rested his hand on her head while he waited for Agatha to speak. Agatha fidgeted with the door. She hadn't had a plan for what to say when she got down here.

"How are the birds?" Ulrich nudged gently. Agatha seemed to come back from wherever she'd been.

"Fine, good. Noon made 'em a little like, extra house. The weather," she trailed off, getting farther away in her eyes again, which told Ulrich she was looking at one of her overlays. Or just trying to think of what to say. She had become even more spacey since they crossed into Desnor, he noticed. "...might be a storm soon."

"Well that's exciting." Ulrich said, smiling. He was running his thumb over Ritz' head, curling his hand around her to scritch under her chin. Agatha nodded.

"Has Phineas said anything about where we're going next?" she asked, just for something to say. Ulrich's face fell flat, and from their seat on Vane's head Siegfried sneezed; a funny little habit they demonstrated when Ulrich's mood shifted dramatically.

"Nope!" Ulrich said, swiping the magnifiers out of his way to see her better. "You know exactly as much as I do. Probably more, since you were outside just now." Agatha shrugged.

"There's nothing, nothing big enough for me to see. I feel like we've been sailing for weeks." Ulrich switched off the lamp and rubbed at his eyes under his glasses. Siegfried crawled down to rest their paws on Vane's snout and gaze at him upside-down, one small eye meeting two large ones.

"She does this on purpose, you know," they said. "likes to see us full of _anticipation._ " They sent a shiver down their whole length for dramatic effect. Even when they were annoyed their speech had a distinctly musical cadence. Like they were reciting a script, lines delivered in the most aesthetically pleasing tone and emphasis. Vane's expression didn't change but his ears twisted forward.

"Mm," he rumbled. Ulrich stood up and Agatha made a movement like a flinch.

"Oh, you don't have to stop what you're doing, I just-" Ulrich waved her off. Ritz automatically scurried up the front of his shirt and clung to his wide shoulder, her eye scanning the room. As he came close, Siegfried leapt gracefully to the floor and slithered fluidly up Ulrich's body to perch on his other side.

The social conditioning to ignore oddly-presenting daemons aside, Agatha was in no position to judge anyone for having an unconventional setup given her...unique circumstances. But even seeing as many different people as she had in Decodenn she couldn't recall ever seeing _anyone_ with two, and two different kinds besides. Ritz didn't unnerve her, it would take a lot to accomplish that, but the mink seemed awfully uncomfortable most of the time. Scared, even. And she never went near the others even after Siegfried had warmed up to them. She just stayed quiet and watched. Listened, Agatha guessed. As if he had no idea anything about it was off, Ulrich treated both of his daemons exactly the same, the only noticeable difference being that Ritz almost never stopped touching him.

"No, you are fine," Ulrich sighed. "I was just about to venture downstairs myself."

"Been at it way too long." Siegfried interjected matter-of-factly.

"I'm surprised Phineas hasn't been up." Ulrich finished, stopping before Agatha. Vane lifted his head.

"Hasn't been up?" his voice, used so sparingly, tumbled like gravel from his throat. Siegfried shook their head.

That _was_ weird _._ Taking the hint, Agatha backed into the hallway and Vane squeezed carefully past Ulrich to join her. Ulrich firmly closed the door and there was a loud _click_ as Noon locked it up. A pointless gesture, perhaps, but it always seemed to ease Ulrich's mind.

**She's down here.**

Lucky Noon's voice echoed serene in their minds. Ulrich wrinkled his nose as they made their way towards the stairs.

"She is probably not wearing a shirt." he said.

**Hehe.**

Agatha and Vane were silent ahead of him. Siegfried skittered down towards his collar and Ulrich crooked his arm for them to curl against his chest.

"Rude." Siegfried drawled in their thick Deutsch accent. "Other people live here too."

"S'her ship." Vane mumbled.

They spread out of formation when they hit the galley at the bottom of the stairs. Agatha turned to hold the pantry door open for Ulrich, but he changed direction and drifted into the kitchen. Siegfried scrambled onto the countertop and began taking stock of the various debris scattered there, searching for snacks.

"We should have a meal, I lost track of time." Ulrich said, pocketing his glasses. "I'll see if I can get something started, would you like anything special?" Agatha shook her head.

"No, thank you." Vane was already halfway down the stairs and Agatha followed suit, letting the spring loaded door snap shut behind her. On the counter, Siegfried had found and taken a bite of half a chocolate bar Ulrich had given up on earlier that afternoon.

"You will spoil dinner." Ulrich said flatly, punctuating the sentence by biting into the candy Siegfried handed him. He broke off a small piece and handed it off to Ritz, who took it delicately between her paws. She said nothing, but nuzzled her nose against the jagged shell of Ulrich's left ear.

 

* * *

 

Vane was ahead of her, and through him Agatha felt the wash of primordial relief that came from stepping into Lucky Noon's glow. Even the dulled sensation through her daemon was still enough to interrupt the rhythm of her steps, and when she entered the room she paused in the doorway to collect herself.

"Hiya," Phineas called placidly. Phineas was indeed shirtless, on the floor with her elbows resting on her knees, the bare skin of her back mashed up as flush to Noon's stone as she could get. Normally, walking into a room with Phineas inside meant dealing with Nova, who could be...off putting, if one wasn't used to him. No, that sounded too mean...just, he was. He required a lot of energy, in a way Siegfried didn't, and aside from that his proximity to Vane always brought up a lot more confusion for Agatha to sort through. But for now he was curled up in Noon's lap, looking almost asleep while Noon smoothed over the iridescent feathers of his back. Vane's claws clicked against the wood floor as he ambled towards them, and Noon held out their arms and made a baby noise at the nightmare beast rapidly approaching.

"OooOOOHH hi hi," they said, grasping both sides of Vane's head and drawing him close to press their faces together. Noon dug their fingers into the sides of the dog's neck, shaking his ruff a little and giggling when Vane's tail kicked into gear and he made an embarrassingly happy growl. Nova trilled and leapt from Noon's lap to flutter up on Vane's back instead, preening his feathers where Noon had mussed them.

Agatha decided this was a good time for another one of those deep breaths; Noon and Phineas together was. A lot, all at once. Lucky Noon's physical interactions with her daemon had been a surprise (Lucky Noon _at all_ had been a surprise), but there hadn't been an opportunity to protest even if she'd wanted to.

The moment she'd stepped onto the ship for the first time back in Decodenn, blindly guided by a hand on Vane's back, something fundamental had changed, and she had known the second they entered Noon's chambers because Vane _wailed_ and bolted away from her into the arms of...someone. Something. Noon must have been in their younger form, or maybe kneeling, but what mattered was they flung their arms around Vane and held on like they were both drowning and Agatha felt something inside her threaten to snap. The sensation of Noon's touch was different from that of a humankind's, cool and gentle and less invasive, like being touched by mist, but nobody had touched Vane at all in years and years and _this_ was something else _entirely._ Agatha had leaned heavily against Ulrich, who must have seen she was unsteady and rushed to catch her. Over the desperate, almost frightening sounds of the enormous dog whining and scrabbling against the floorboards to get impossibly closer to the form of Lucky Noon, Agatha heard Siegfried murmur to Ulrich in hushed, tense Deutsch.

That had been months ago now. As far as she had seen, Noon spared Ulrich's daemon the same familiar treatment they doled out to Vane and Nova. Agatha guessed the explanation was mundane; Agatha's situation was unique, and as captain, Phineas was soul-bound to the ship's heart under normal circumstances anyway (most ships just didn't usually bond _back_ ). Ulrich was, by all accounts, connected only by way of being a crew member and he gave no invitation for that kind of intimacy. Although, privately, Vane had mentioned to Agatha that he often saw Siegfried watching them all together with a curious look on their lopsided face. She supposed they would see what happened when another person joined up.

"Are you with us?" Phineas's voice found its way to her and Agatha came back again. She was so distracted today, it must be the weather. She shook herself away from the sight of her daemon resting across Lucky Noon's comically inadequate lap, Nova loafed on top of him to complete the stupidest totem pole in existence, and moved closer to Phineas. She was only wearing shorts but her scarred body made it hard to see her as vulnerable; Hazard's mark over her heart was a deep indigo starburst in this light, and both of her shoulders were crisscrossed with so many scratches they were mostly scar tissue. Agatha was suddenly unsure if she should be looking, all that skin, but Phineas' clothes were piled on the floor within easy reach and she made no move for any of them.

"Hi, sorry," Agatha replied, stuffing her hands in her pockets. With Phineas on the floor she felt like she was looking down at her from two stories up.

"Wanna sit?" Phineas called from street level.

Again it seemed her daemon had made up her mind for her, so she shrugged and sank down next to Phineas, copying her position. The stone's energy, Lucky Noon's energy, thrummed through her like a low singing bowl ringing on and on, traveling her metal like a tuning fork. The twist of loneliness in her rattled in its wake, loosening its grip. In front of her, Vane pushed his head insistently against Noon's small chest and they kissed him between the ears. They looked at Agatha as they did so, smiling brightly. Agatha leaned into the haze of feeling. She wondered what it was like for Phineas, all meat and bone with no steel to sing.

"Did you need something or did you just come to hang out?" Phineas' eyes had slipped closed again, her head resting back against the heart. It was odd seeing her and Nova so calm, but the unshakable well-being radiating from both of them combined with Noon's area of affect made it impossible to be anything but relaxed. Agatha had almost forgotten why she came down here.

"Uh, Ulrich's making dinner I think, and we were kind of wondering if you knew when we're gonna land again." The barest hint of distortion towards the end. She hoped she didn't sound accusatory.

"Soon!" Phineas chirped. She offered no explanation for why, but she sounded so sure of herself Agatha didn't really want her to be wrong. Never wanted her to be wrong, but,

"How soon?" she pressed.

"Probably tomorrow, if the storm holds off." Nova fluttered excitedly and Phineas' eyes snapped open.

"A blizzard!" Nova screeched, startling his companions. He stamped in a circle across Vane's shoulders, spread his tail feathers and stretched his wings. Phineas sat up and turned excitedly to Agatha.

"You've never seen snow huh!" She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Maybe we should slow down, we could wait here for it if you want."

Yes please.

"No, that's alright. There will be other chances." Agatha responded. Phineas, sat up and away from the ship's heart, suddenly seemed to remember she wasn't wearing enough and snatched up her coat.

"S-sorry, I get kinda weird down here." she stammered as she stood up.

"Don't pin your weirdness on me." Noon retorted. A very faint smile curved Agatha's lip.

"It's all the same to me." she said.

Nova stood too, squeezing Vane's back with his talons one more time before a flurry of wings brought him to alight on Phineas' shoulder, right where the scars had been thickest. The eyes in the peacock-pheasant's iridescent black feathers shone ethereally in Noon's light; he could have been some kind of ghost. As if sensing her thoughts Nova stopped grooming Phineas' hair to stare at Agatha instead. She shivered under the gaze.

 

* * *

 

Siegfried was nibbling on a strawberry and sat up to greet them when the entourage came through the pantry door.

"Nearly finished! These won't take long."

Ulrich kept his back to them, snapping green beans into a sizzling frying pan. Three plates sat on the counter next to him; two already loaded down with responsible portions of meat and bread, one with what looked like single-bite servings of each item. Ritz hung around his neck like a scarf and also failed to react to anyone else in the kitchen.

Nova hollered and launched off of Phineas' shoulder like he was a much smaller bird in a much bigger space, shoving her backwards and crossing the distance to skid to a landing beside Ulrich. All the fur on Siegfried's tail stuck out like a bottle brush and they hissed, flattening themself against the counter as Nova soared by. Ulrich's shoulders bunched up around his ears.

" _Please._ " he complained, agitatedly throwing the rest of the beans in the pan. Agatha bit back a smirk but Vane's low huff of a laugh drew Siegfried's indignation.

"How is anyone supposed to work with all this ruckus!" they squeaked. "Do you want dinner or not!" Phineas leapt to a seat at the counter and leaned on her elbows, smiling at them.

"Sorry friend." she said warmly. There was a weird moment where she looked like she wanted to reach out and pet them, do something reassuring, and Siegfried very nearly bolted back to Ulrich before he loudly cleared his throat. Getting the message loud and clear, Nova clicked backwards a few steps so he wouldn't disturb the food on the plates, then returned to Phineas. Siegfried sagged in visible relief in tandem with Ulrich's shoulders and let themself be nudged by Nova's beak, carded through the fur behind their ear where Phineas' eyes had tracked. She looked away, suddenly self-conscious. Agatha seated herself at the island and Vane sat behind her a few paces, where he could watch everyone.

"Uh," Siegfried butted the side of their face against Nova's wing, looking up at Phineas almost apologetically even though Phineas was the one causing problems with her overfamiliarity. "yes, it'll be ready soon. Be patient please." Then they slunk off to join Ulrich at the stove.

Phineas and her daemon both, the forbearing little crew had learned, tended to interact with humankinds _and_ their daemons almost interchangeably. Nova had startled plenty of people who hadn't expected him to join a conversation, and Phineas had put her foot in her mouth more times than any of them could count by commenting on strangers' companions, how pretty they were or trying to reassure what she saw as unrest when it wasn't her place. Phineas and Nova both knew the rules about this sort of thing, of course, but commanders had a reputation for taking liberties with the social contract in other ways to begin with. Commanders already made a bad name for themselves by "violating" their bond with their own daemons for heathen abilities; getting too friendly with others' was just one more reason for people to dislike them.

Agatha watched Phineas slide her hand down Nova's back, closing her eyes so he could nose against her cheek. A thought was accumulating in her processors, but before she could get hold of it Ulrich was setting plates in front of them.

"There we are." he said, mostly to himself. Nova and Siegfried vacated the dinner table to sit with Vane, one on either side. Ritz stayed where she was, so still around Ulrich's neck she might have been asleep despite the earlier tension.

"Tomorrow maybe," Agatha piped up.

"Hm?" Ulrich mumbled with his mouth full. Phineas perked up.

"Oh yeah, if there's no storm tonight we should be landing tomorrow."

Ulrich nodded and finished chewing.

"So you know where it is we're going?"

"Uh, little cliffside town I think." Phineas said. "Well, a little bigger than that, but we should be able to stretch our legs and resupply a little." She looked back to her plate and busied herself with the leftover roast Ulrich had heated up. "It seems pretty snowy here, I thought Agatha might like to stop in a biome like this. Kinda like decodenn without the bubble."

Behind them, Ulrich could see Nova grooming Vane's ear and humming softly. Siegfried, on the floor by Vane's flank, caught Ulrich's eye and shook their head, the two of them sharing what passed for an eyeroll when Ulrich couldn't actually get away with one. To the women, Ulrich smiled.

"That sounds good to me." Phineas beamed at the approval. "As long as we are going _somewhere_."

"We're always going _somewhere._ "

Agatha munched placidly on the samples Ulrich had made for her while they chatted. Eventually, she felt Siegfried's gentle weight settle against Vane's left side.

 

* * *

 

The weather held long enough for the Noon to deposit them on a small shelf at the base of the city on the mountain, but Agatha didn't seem disappointed as far as Phineas could tell.

"It's building," she said, distracted by the sky like she'd been since they hit this region. "gettin' bigger."

The Noon's unlikely shape hovered gently near the rocky path they'd spotted flying in, the only thing in the air either because the threat of an ice storm was becoming urgent or because it was 4:12 in the morning. There was an odd yellow light from the clouds here that covered everything in twilight even at the odd hour.

Ulrich stepped off the ship's ramp in a thick navy overcoat, black pants and a pair of boots that Phineas hadn't seen before. His hands were jammed deep in his pockets, hunched against the wind and half his face was hidden behind a thick blue scarf. Ritz was layered under it somewhere, Phineas was sure, and Siegfried was curled on his shoulder clinging to the garter stitch. Phineas was struck, again, always, by how thin Siegfried looked. Some days were better than others but the color in their sable coat wavered right along with how far back Ulrich's eyes had sunken, the shine in their eye sometimes so faint it was hard not to just demand what the hell the problem was. This morning they were looking small, but alert. Maybe kinda squinty but that was probably the cold wind in their face.

"Morning!" Phineas called, having already explored to the edge of the path they could see. From his perch on her shoulder Nova chirped a greeting to Siegfried, who mumbled something in reply.

"It certainly is." Ulrich grumped, clunking down the wood walkway to the stone floor of the overhang. The wind was awful on the hill to start with but the overhang made a sort of breezeway; after a moment Siegfried gave up and crawled inside Ulrich's coat, snuggling against his chest and peering out above a button. Ulrich glanced around until he found Agatha and Vane, standing on the edge of the cliff to look out over the sprawl from this new vantage point. Phineas looked too. Snow was already falling in scattered ribbons in the distance, enormous silent ghosts reaching for the land. Phineas watched Agatha's still form like a statue and Nova nipped at her ear.

"Our crew is so pretty, look how pretty our crew is," he quietly crooned. "perfect." Phineas reached an arm around him, gripping her fingers into his feathers roughly. The weight of his spurs digging into her shoulder was grounding, and the two halves of Mana so close made her feel strong.

"Perfect." she echoed. Ulrich sneezed and made a snort so disgusting even Phineas was surprised. He stamped one foot, frustrated by the trappings of a human body, and Siegfried spat something rude in Deutsch. Phineas giggled. The spell broken, Vane shook himself and Agatha turned to her companions, waiting in their direction now.

 **Be good.** Noon's voice sounded in six heads, and the crew began the climb to the city awakening above them.


	2. 2

By the time the complement neared the city limits it was getting close to breakfast. Ulrich's mood hadn't improved.

"Aren’t Deutsch people supposed to be good at cold?" Phineas teased, watching him pull his coat even more tightly around himself ahead of her. "Mountains too?" Nova was taking the chance to spread his wings, swooping in tight circles around the group, and he hovered awkwardly in front of Ulrich to get a good look at Siegfried. The tiny white mask of their face was barely visible between the buttons of Ulrich's coat.

"We cannot _all_ be impervious _freaks."_ Ulrich snapped. He was angry at Phineas' needling and even angrier that he was angry about it; she was just being friendly, but Ulrich didn't have the will to spare for polite indulgence. Why did _he_ have to be so outwardly pleasant? _Agatha_ was allowed to stay quiet why couldn't he have even a _few minutes'_ peace?

He should have eaten before they left the ship, he was well aware his low blood sugar always dragged his mood down with it. But he hadn't thought they would-

"Why the hell did we dock so far from this place?" Siegfried piped up. Ulrich winced at how badly he'd riled himself up and nudged their face back inside his coat, shushing them.

"Noon says they couldn't get that close." Nova replied anyway. "Something's repelling the ship."

"A saint?" Agatha murmured passively. She kept tripping over her feet, watching the view over the side of the mountain or the sky rather than the path. Phineas watched her upturned face fondly, and Nova finally landed gracelessly to hitch a ride on Vane's back. Safe now from scrutiny, Siegfried wormed outside again to listen.

"Dunno, something." Phineas said. "It's no big deal, we can get rooms so we don't gotta walk this every day we're here."

"Rooms might be expensive in a place like this." Ulrich groused. He did not mind, really; having his own bedroom was a luxury, and Ulrich loved hotels. But he didn't feel like being agreeable.

"Well if you wanna walk back down here in the dark tonight then we can do that too." Phineas offered, in the falsely cheerful clip that told Ulrich he'd gotten to her. It only made him feel worse. Agatha toed a khaki-colored jagged stone over the side of the winding khaki-colored path, its periodic smashes against the cliff face as it fell going on long enough that Ulrich was suddenly glad he'd chosen to walk on the inside track.

"There's a quicker way down if you want it." Agatha said.

 

* * *

 

From outside, the settlement had looked small and maybe sort of primitive, built mostly from stone and carved from the mountain crag, but up close the scale was almost overwhelming. The town of Haildrum was mostly _inside_ the mountain, perfectly modern buildings arranged in efficient city blocks, if somewhat mismatched in material. Not the sparse village Ulrich had expected at all. There were even a few chain restaurants, a valiant effort he had to admit impressed him. Such brazen attempts at far-reaching capitalism rarely made it out to such inhospitable corners of the Sprawl, and locals tended to be fiercely loyal to their own businesses besides, starving out the outsiders. But their presence was useful information; Haildrum got a fair amount of travelers looking for Traveler Things. He hadn't really been planning on it, but maybe this would be a good place to stock up properly on supplies.

Although, he didn't care for the claustrophobia of only seeing the sky framed by mountain stone, and oppressive sky at that. What kinds of people _lived_ like this?

The wind diminished significantly once they passed through Haildrum's entry arch, a pretty stone-and-marble banner that stretched across the main street. There was still snow from the last snowfall piled neat and high between buildings, but the roads were clear and one or two pickup trucks idled in front of businesses while young people hustled shipments between them. Ulrich wondered what time it was, and chided himself again for not finding time to finish a watch that worked while traveling in the Sprawl.

"Y'all hungry? I am." Phineas announced.

"I'm not sure anything's open yet." Agatha said softly, glancing around uncertainly at the scattering of morning commuters and daemons in unfamiliar provincial shapes. Nobody was _really_ staring, but they were definitely drawing curious looks from enough people to make her uncomfortable.

No, she was supposed to be finding specific words; this was "self-consciousness" again. That one she'd gotten good at naming very quickly since leaving Decodenn. Vane nudged his head under one hand, and she slid her aviators down over her eyes with the other.

"We could ask somebody," Phineas said, already starting towards a guy sweeping snow from a stoop. Ulrich tugged her sleeve.

"I will go, stay here." he said.

"How come?"

"This place may not appreciate...different types." he replied, his tone indicating he was familiar with but had little patience for the attitude. Nova raised his head to look down his beak at Ulrich. "Just sit tight."

Ulrich turned enough to hide mostly behind Agatha so Siegfried could tuck their head back inside Ulrich's coat. While they got comfortable in the extra pocket sewn inside, Ulrich unraveled his scarf to uncover Ritz, who looked like she'd been asleep. Vane and Agatha watched quietly as Ulrich murmured gently to the mink.

"Time for work," he said, stroking her tiny head. Ritz yawned and sat up, now looking as alert and active as any of the other Daemons on the street. Vane cocked his head but said nothing. Ulrich smiled dazzlingly up at Agatha, his posture much more obliging than it had been.

"Be right back!"

Ulrich zeroed in on the young man Phineas had started after, his stork daemon milling close by. Her feathers ruffled out when Ulrich came near and the boy's head snapped up, the broom stuttering to a halt.

"Good morning!" Ulrich called cheerfully. He casually pulled his hands from his pockets and fiddled with his lapel, to show they were empty, and the shopkeep's shoulders loosened. Putting away Siegfried had been a good choice, then; historically, a ferret daemon resting about his neck had not helped Ulrich in his negotiations with already suspicious parties. Ritz nodded conversationally towards the stork, who tipped her beak politely.

"Hi. Good morning." The boy looked past Ulrich at the cluster of companions waiting on him, the daemon bird stiffening slightly again at what Ulrich assumed was the sight of Vane at the feet of a seven foot tall android. He wished he had gone ahead without Phineas and Agatha to do this before they entered the city, it was so difficult doing things with other people.

"You seem nervous," Ulrich said easily. "I don't mean to keep you-"

"I ain't nervous. I don't care if you're pirates." the boy stammered. Ulrich laughed, and Ritz covered her one eye bashfully. The stork stepped in place a few paces and the boy’s grip on the broom lessened.

"Now why would you think we are pirates? I didn't think this old coat needed replacing _that_ badly."

"We get 'em all the time. They're half our business. I ain't ever seen you folks around and you look-" he cleared his throat, trying to get back to his sweeping. "y'all look tough, is all." Ulrich hummed.

"Well, Maxim-"

"How do you- oh." Maxim glanced down at his nametag and blushed. Ulrich smiled warmly and the blush deepened. Oh, how cute.

"Well, Maxim," he started again, his accent thicker than it needed to be. "I only came over to ask if there is anywhere to eat around here, soon. It seems we've arrived too early for Haildrum's preference."

"There's a Barlow's around the corner," Maxim gestured dismissively, his lip curling. "that'll be open in half an hour maybe, but, um," The stork daemon was looking shyly up at Ritz, who fluttered her eyelashes, such as they were. "Um, the inn at the end of this street serves breakfast until noon, to anyone, you don't have to be staying there. It's real nice. My cousin runs it."

"It is serving right now?"

"Yessir." Ulrich threw up his hands, spreading his fingers.

"Toll," he chirped. Ritz perked up on his shoulder to prop herself up tall along the side of his head, brushing her tail slowly over Ulrich's blue scarf. Maxim and his daemon both fidgeted and Ulrich almost felt bad laying it on so thick.

"Thank you, Maxim." He said, slipping his hands back in his pockets. "Have a lovely day." Maxim cleared his throat, offered a very small smile.

"Ah, you too." Ulrich nodded and sauntered back to the others, making sure to keep up his gait and his posture until he could be sure the smitten shopkeep wasn't watching him so closely.

Agatha was sitting on a low concrete divide, her hand resting on Vane's head where he sat between her knees, Nova on the ground between his enormous front paws and fussing his beak through the fur of the dog daemon's chest. Phineas weaved back and forth on her toes, making a visible effort not to wander off to investigate every new thing in a new place. She twirled when she felt Ulrich creep up, scraping the pavement with her bare foot. Nova hopped up to sit on her shoulder so he could be eye-level with Ritz, who had returned to her usual near-catatonic state and made no indication she noticed him at all.

It was rude for humankinds to stare at others' daemons, but it was hard for Ulrich not to when Nova perched on Phineas like that. He had never seen a real Palawan before but this one was around the size of a turkey, and although they moved together with the usual ease of a person and their other half (Ulrich supposed), he couldn't help but think how awkward it must be to have a partner like that, so loud and unwieldy. His eyes tracked to Nova's talons and he thought of the patchwork of scars across Phineas' shoulders. Siegfried shifted silently in their pocket.

"There is breakfast to be had," Ulrich said brightly, no hint of where his thoughts had strayed. "The inn, down there at the end of the street."

They all turned to look in perfect unison. There was, in fact, a tall wooden building there that could have been inn-like. It could have also been a prop on a movie set; the sides only went back a few feet before disappearing into the mountain stone, the roof obscured by the inward slope of the cliff.

"This place looks fake." Agatha remarked quietly. She rubbed both of Vane's ears between her fingers.

"It's neat!" Phineas insisted. "You're just not used to smaller stuff is all. Little towns like this have all kinds of weird stuff hidden in them, you'll like it."

"Oh, uh," Ulrich touched his hand over the spot in his coat where Siegfried rested. "Agatha you should try to..." God, Agatha and her daemon looked so nervous huddled together like that. If Ulrich hadn't seen her tear through steel with his own eyes he would have a hard time believing they were a threat to anyone. The two of them watched him, patient despite their discomfort.

"...well, I don't know what you should try to do, to be honest. It's just that boy I spoke to was afraid of us, I think it's Vane."

"Sorry," Vane rumbled, bunching up his shoulders and trying to look smaller. Siegfried peeked their face between the buttons of the coat, just enough to be heard.

"Shush," they said. They clearly wanted to do more, maybe run down and smooth out the worried muscles, but they disappeared back inside instead. Ulrich touched Ritz' silky tail, taming it flat against his chest.

"I'm going to keep Siegfried put up for a while, I am not sure the little thief would do a lot to put them at ease." he turned to Phineas, adjusting his glasses with a stern look.

"I do not even know what to tell you. Please try not to scare anyone." Phineas grinned and Nova flared his wings, catching the light and making the both of them seem huge.

"They think we look like _pirates?_ "

"We can have this conversation on the way, hm?" Ulrich slouched, stuffed his hands back in his pockets. "I'm _starving."_

 

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later they were seated at a round wooden table, drink orders placed but not yet delivered; this was, evidently, The Place To Be for breakfast and there was only one waiter working this shift. With Agatha sitting down and Vane lying under the table, Agatha was somewhat relieved she had stopped drawing fearful attention. Unfortunately the attention was only going somewhere else.

Nova stood on the back of Phineas' chair, grooming her hair into an even fluffier mess than it normally was. There were several other daemon birds scattered among the patrons of the restaurant, but Nova was by far the biggest and brightest one in the room. Agatha had become used to humankinds' scrutiny, especially attuned to it when it was directed at one of her charges, and it was obvious the bird and its human were the most interesting thing any of the patrons had seen that morning. Agatha didn't like it.

The waiter returned, his tarantula daemon clinging gracefully to his shoulder. The daemon wore a spider-sized polka-dot bowtie, and Phineas had liked them both instantly.

"Have we decided?" he asked, cheerful despite the hour. They placed their orders with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Agatha watched Phineas closely while she smiled and flirted and Vane rolled over onto his side, sighing a deep, bone-weary dog sigh. Nova disappeared under the table to join him.

"I think after this we explore a little more," Ulrich started in primly, taking a biscuit from the basket their waiter had brought out. "this is a good chance to resupply. Dresnor is going to be another week the way we're going, at least, and there's probably not another town like this until we're through it."

Agatha thought guiltily of the little plate Ulrich had fixed her on the ship.

"Are we low on food?" she asked. Ulrich shook his head quickly, chewing.

"No, nothing catastrophic, but I would rather spend the money and have too much than the other way around."

Phineas and Nova both watched Ritz while Ulrich spoke. Ritz was not dozing, as she often did, apparently cognizant enough to understand she needed to play a part. But it bothered Phineas to see Ulrich speak without Siegfried emphasizing or embellishing; the daemon mink wasn't nearly so animated. She hoped Siegfried was doing okay. Now and then, Ulrich's hand drifted to where they were hiding. That bothered her too, it must get stressful being out of contact for long stretches like this. Out of sight under the table, Nova settled warmly in the crook of Vane's sprawled limbs.

The front door opened and Phineas started at her crew's sudden change in expression. The chatter in the room faltered but immediately came back in full force, like everyone had realized their mistake. Phineas turned in her seat to look, prompting a short exasperated sigh from Ulrich.

The woman in the entryway looked like she hadn't eaten or slept in days. Her gaunt face almost seemed to slough off her skull as she shambled in, waited for the hostess. She was alone; she had no daemon.

Ulrich hissed at her and Phineas had the good social sense to turn before the woman caught her looking, but Phineas didn't think it would matter anyway. The way her hollow eyes stared into nothingness was enough to unsettle Phineas even from across the room.

"I thought humans _died_ without a daemon." Phineas stage-whispered to the others.

"Not always." Ulrich said flatly. Phineas didn't like the way Ritz stared at her and decided maybe she didn't want to push this topic with Ulrich anymore. But Agatha shook her head like he hadn't spoken.

"The weather department back home was...sort of working on that kind of stuff. They thought it would be useful to know how to harvest the energy from...from cutting it apart. The bond." Her face maintained its serene expression while she recounted, but Phineas felt her boots shift to rest against Vane, who had sat up nervously and hit his head on the table. "They said they were trying to figure out how to manufacture something similar between artificial objects that could be destroyed without hurting anyone.

"It wasn't so bad for me I guess. I only remember the one time, while you guys were there." She said quietly. Vane set his head in her lap and she stroked slowly between his ears. "It can grow back, if you stay together."

The eyes on Nova's tailfeathers glowed faintly and he hastily scurried back to climb into Phineas' arms, his back against her chest.

"And how many other test subjects did they chew through figuring _that_ out?" Ulrich spat. "No prisons in Decodenn, where did they come from?" Agatha shrugged.

"I wasn't important enough to be told."

"You think they're doing that kind of thing to people here?" Phineas asked. Her serious tone drew the others' attention. Ulrich sighed and adjusted his glasses, collecting himself.

"Who knows. We _are_ pretty far removed here, it is not like we haven't seen stranger things." He swirled his hot chocolate in its cup, busying his hands. "The people here seem skittish, anxious like they're waiting for a hammer to drop. I would not rule out some unpleasant shit."

Phineas fought against the impulse to turn towards the woman again. Before she could stew in her feelings for too long, the waiter returned with their food. The conversation lightened, but not by much.

 

* * *

 

After the weirdness at breakfast the prospect of venturing further into the mountain loomed over them. Nobody wanted to admit to it but Ulrich's paranoia had infected everybody, souring slightly the idea of staying in Haildrum longer than they had to.

The three humankinds crowded together on one of the stone benches outside the inn, watching for other daemon-less people or suspicious characters. Paying more attention now, it was clear the complement was _definitely_ standing out to the citizens, tourist town or not. People ducked their heads when they noticed Agatha watching them back, faked half hearted coughs when Phineas caught their eye. Phineas was already seething after Agatha's treatment in Decodenn had been brought up, and seeing people flinch from her only made Nova's feathers shine brighter. She held him tightly in her arms; commanders had to keep their daemons especially close, but when Mana stirred it was dangerous for them to separate at all.

"We should leave." Ulrich sighed. "We have enough supplies to last to the next settlement, I just thought it might be good to play it safe."

"We could shop, still," Agatha suggested. "an afternoon wouldn't hurt. Are you scared?" Ulrich eyed her.

"You are not nervous?" Agatha shrugged.

"I think we could fight our way out of anything if we had to." Next to her, Nova's feathers instantly lost their yellow, fading back to blue. Vane and Agatha turned together to look down the busying street, both ways, then back to Ulrich, deadpan. "I don't see anybody here I couldn't beat to death if I had to." Ulrich snorted.

"Don't see what's so funny." Vane mumbled. Phineas giggled and Nova fluttered down to wander between everyone's feet.

"Let's shop, at least." Phineas decided. "then see how we feel after. We can survive a couple hours." Nova's claws clicked against the concrete to stand in front of them.

"It could be fun!" he said. "Maybe the whole town is in on it. We never been chased out by a mob before."

"Us either," Agatha responded thoughtfully. Ulrich dragged his hands over his face.

 


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did you think i was done with this bullshit guess again nerd

The main street curved sharply in on itself, winding in a downward slope behind the first row of buildings and curving deeper into the mountain Haildrum was built into. It was harder for Agatha to see the sky now, but her eyes kept tracking upwards to the gaps in the peaks. Ulrich kept looking to them too, but the look in his eyes was less curious and more like he'd smelled something rotten.

Phineas was wholly preoccupied with the shopping district. The street here was narrowed by pop-up vendors jammed between storefronts, and Haildrum now felt very much awake with a crowd of market-goers already beginning to form in earnest. The crew instinctively stayed close to their commander, who seemed to forget her paranoia in light of everything in front of her.

"We need a leash." Siegfried muttered to Vane through the hem of Ulrich's coat. Vane's laugh was more of a rhythmic rumble, but it caught Nova's attention.

"Where do we wanna go?" Nova asked, swiveling his head to look at the others from where he nested in the hood of Phineas' jacket. "Guess we shouldn't split up huh?"

Ritz stared back blankly. Nobody seemed inclined to respond, distracted for their own reasons.

"Gonna need some kind of feedback here y'all," Nova said flatly. Phineas curved off to the side, drawing the others behind her until they were sheltered in the lee between two vendor booths, outside the midstream of shoppers.

"So we shouldn't split up, _huh?_ " Phineas pressed. The other two seemed to snap out of their reveries.

"No," Ulrich said faintly. "stay together."

"o-KAY," Phineas chirped with false cheerfulness. "where do we wanna go first then?"

Agatha looked down the street, easily able to see over the crowd. Too many eyes looked back at her, the weight felt even through her aviators. But now that they were potential fights rather than potential social encounters she felt at ease. Her steel was more reliable than her conversation.

"Are you gonna buy something or what?" Agatha turned to the gruff man behind the stall they were stood near and considered how his neck might feel as it snapped under her hands.

"Uh," like breaking a stick wrapped in a sweater, like crushing a doorknob in her fist, "no,"

Phineas and Ulrich clumsily rushed to step in, but the sound of a bell swept through the busy street, and everything stopped.

Around the crew, every daemon and humankind froze, the new quiet permeated only by the strange sound of bags and jewelry coming to rest against bodies. The bell tolled again, and then the silence was broken by a panicked exclamation from Ulrich as Ritz went limp around his neck.

Everything else forgotten, Ulrich gathered her up and cradled her in his hands while Siegfried scrambled in their hiding place to make room. Having ascertained that she was still firmly corporeal, Ulrich kissed the top of her head and moved to switch his daemons again. He watched as Siegfried wrapped themself briefly around the daemon mink, an odd sort of embrace as they tucked her safely away before sluicing up to take her place around Ulrich's shoulders.

"What the _fuck_." Siegfried demanded, clearly aiming for fury but only managing to sound frightened. While they were dealing with Ritz, Phineas and Agatha had closed ranks on either side of Ulrich. "What was that?"

The two of them were tense with potential energy, watching the men in the booths on either side and waiting for them to make a move. The familiar sight of his crewmates' battle stances snapped Ulrich back to the present; he shook himself, adjusted his hat as an excuse to move his hands.

The whistling of bitter wind over the gaps in the mountain peaks was ghostly in the quiet, bearing down on them like bated breath, like a chorus waiting for something to narrate. Nova craned his neck this way and that, apparently trying to see every angle at once, before letting his shoulders sink back to their usual un-bowed position.

"I'm. Not sure they're gonna try anything y'all." he said. Phineas straightened up, feeling kind of silly.

"Uh," she said, then Vane fell at Agatha's feet, thudding much louder than even his formidable size should have warranted.

A quick shuffling panic as Agatha, Siegfried, and Phineas surged towards him simultaneously, Nova giving an ugly squawk at the sudden change in altitude. Without thinking about how absurd it was, (although the whole situation was absurd to begin with) Phineas pressed down in Vane's ruff to search for a pulse. Agatha shuddered, her chin dropped to her chest.

"-neas," she managed.

"Get _off!"_ Siegfried snarled at Phineas. She flinched back like she'd been stung.

"S-sorry," Phineas said hastily. Siegfried worried over Vane, pawing around his ears and his closed eyes. They shook their head.

"I don't _understand."_ They stood up to look Agatha in the face. "Are you alright? Do you feel sleepy?"

She shook her head, after a silence that went on a beat too long. Phineas stole a glance at Ulrich, who had looked to her for confirmation too. The set of Agatha's shoulders, the jerkiness apparent even in her small movement; she was behaving like she had in Decodenn, while Monterey had kept Vane as his own daemon. Phineas briefly considered committing a murder.

"Maybe Vane is like Ritz?" Nova offered to Siegfried, obviously trying to sidestep Mana's rage. Siegfried looked to Ulrich. He had pulled his coat open again, one hand in the pocket Ritz was...sleeping, in. "Ritz sleeps all the time while Ulrich is awake." The ferret daemon pointedly ignored the palawan and fell forward to bound back to Ulrich's side.

Agatha caught her breath, so to speak, and slid her arms calmly under Vane, lifting him up to drape him across her wide shoulders. She caught Phineas' pained expression.

"I'm fine." Agatha monotoned. Ulrich came closer.

"I suppose you're next?" he said meanly, glaring at Nova. Nova fluttered up and Phineas caught him in her arms, holding him tight to her chest.

"They can try." Phineas said.

"We're used to it," Nova added, his voice tight. "that would probably be more dangerous for whoever's doing this."

"Normally I would not mind the firepower." Ulrich admitted, buttoning his coat and composing himself. He stepped away from the group to examine one of the frozen citizens on the edge of the street.

She looked to be a completely average woman at the market, one hand on her purse and one fiddling with the strap over her shoulder, stag beetle daemon a shiny black spot among the bright curls in her hair. She had stopped mid-step, one foot hanging perfectly still in the air. Her loudly colorful skirt draped awkward and unaffected by whatever was holding her.

"Not a time thing, then," Siegfried murmured near Ulrich's ear. "a...people thing." Ulrich nodded absently. The woman's eyes were open but unmoving. He wondered uneasily how aware they were.

The bell tolled again, breaking off Ulrich's train of thought. It sounded like...not quite metal, stone? A bell made of stone? Siegfried braced themself flat against Ulrich's shoulder, scrunching their one eye shut, and Phineas clung tighter to her daemon. Nova screeched.

"What _what!!"_ Phineas winced.

"TOO TIGHT!" Nova yelled, scrabbling in her grasp. The crew relaxed and Phineas let him go, the tension in the moment gone.

"Oh, sorry."

Nova shook out his feathers. Siegfried opened their eye cautiously.

"Hm." they said.

The chime came again, _lower_ , traveling under their feet rather than through the air. It seemed to go on much longer this time, shaking the foundations and vibrating hard enough to rattle the jewelry in the crowd around them. Nova braced himself, feathers ruffling out aggressively, but again nothing seemed to happen.

The woman next to Ulrich reached out and seized Siegfried by the neck, dragging them off of Ulrich's shoulder. Her mouth fell open.

"Aren't you a special lot," called a voice from her throat, though her face remained still. The rest of her had stilled too, her hand like a vice around Siegfried as they struggled violently against the foreign grasp.

Ulrich made a strangled sort of noise and flinched inward; the woman's touch like ice water dumped over his head and down his back, seeping through his skin to drag mean fingers all between his ribs. Before the panic could set in he noted with clinical interest that his heartbeats felt labored, pushing back against something while Siegfried's tiny claws tore at the woman's hand. The bound-up feeling was a spade wedging into old earth in him, breaking into something _long_ since buried, but thankfully before he could perform too much personal growth the smothering pain caught up with him.

Phineas leapt to catch Ulrich as his knees hit the ground and Nova bolted for the woman's wrist, her arm, chunks of skin coming away under his talons like tissue paper. Phineas winced, the icy touch painful but not as unbearable as it would be for someone else. The bloodied hand shook but held fast. Nova screamed, their voice carrying an echo of commander's authority; there's not TIME for this!

"What do you _want?"_ Phineas shouted.

Siegfried was suffocating. Ulrich felt effervescence rising in his throat, constricting his airways. Savagely grasping for logic against the mental and physical onslaught to his chest, he touched his temple and his mask whispered into form.

Siegfried The Daemon was suddenly not ferret-shaped anymore, and the laws of physics gently but firmly stepped in to wrench the woman's hand from around their much larger neck. Siegfried made a half-hearted attempt to flex their wings and fell to the ground in a pitiful heap of tawny feathers, skittering in a rather ferret-like motion back to Ulrich's outstretched arms. He gathered the horned owl daemon protectively to his chest, forcing himself to breathe deeply through his mask's filter to stave off the sticky-velcro feeling of his throat closing.

Phineas and Agatha, unsure what to do while Ulrich's daemon had been in the hand of what appeared to be an innocent bystander, took the opportunity to step in front of him while he caught his breath.

"What's your deal then?" Phineas demanded from the bleeding woman, careful to stay out of arm's length.

"I should be asking _you."_

"You _really_ shouldn't."

Behind her, the rude shopkeeper turned his face to Agatha.

"Why don't you and yours come a little further down the path then and we can talk, commander." the voice said from his slack mouth.

"Are you alright?" Agatha asked Ulrich softly as he got to his feet. Siegfried launched from his shoulder high into the air above the crowded street, much farther than they should have been able to comfortably go. Ulrich nodded curtly at Agatha.

"Only my pride," he said dully.

Siegfried returned and alighted on Ulrich's arm, saying nothing about what they'd seen.

"I ain't doing shit." Phineas spat. "What's to stop us from fighting our way out of here and just leaving?" She was still facing the woman. She wasn't sure where to look, she hoped she was being intimidating in the right direction.

"Well, if your friends are content to carry around sleeping daemons for the rest of their lives, by all means ignore me. Y'all are free to head out the way you came."

Phineas looked back at her crew and felt frustration rising in her throat. They returned her gaze (well, she assumed Ulrich was looking at her anyway), patiently expectant. What now, commander?

"...where do you want us?"

The open mouths snapped shut. Like they were made of clockwork, the crowd in front of them parted neatly to make a narrow path.

* * *

They were railroaded into a route that ended with them abruptly outside the walls of the settlement, ankle deep in snow and squinting in the wind. Even Phineas pulled her coat tighter, eventually stopping to shake it into a more appropriate shape for the weather. Nova hunkered down in her hood, watching the landscape with eyes like pitch. With two daemons down and counting Phineas' good mood had vanished completely. Nova seemed bigger, his feathers darker; their shadows shimmered together against white snow in all the wrong shapes.

Ulrich passed his hand over his head, over his hat, and now it was wool flat cap to match his wool coat. He tugged it low and peered suspiciously from under the brim. A cheerful flurry had started and visibility was frustratingly low. The plateau they found themselves on was scattered with trees and stones, plenty of places to hide an ambush. He still felt the chill of the woman's hands on Siegfried, wrapped around their neck. The ferret daemon shivered and curled tighter against him. Even as Siegfried brought some small comfort Ulrich thought of Ritz, her weight insistently dead against his hip. He pressed his hand over Siegfried's form under his coat, holding them close.

Agatha and Ulrich normally fought over who took up the end of their marching order, bodyguard and paranoid instincts each demanding the vantage point in equal measure, but Agatha trudged silently ahead. Satisfied, sort of, that they weren't going to be shot in this field, Ulrich fell into step beside her. He realized she was staring at the sky again. Before it had been a good thing, but now she looked up with that trapped, desperate look she'd had in the city. Ritz could have weighed as much as Vane, a stone in his pocket.

"I can not even tell if that's the sky I am seeing." he offered. Agatha took so long to respond he thought she had decided to ignore him.

"It is." she said. She hefted Vane higher on her shoulders and Ulrich hated the way his tail hung limp over her shoulder. "The sky. This snow is from the storm. It'll be here soon."

Their feet crunched across the snow. Ulrich had thought the fog was thickening, making it harder to see her, but now he noticed there was steam rising from Agatha's joints. A ways ahead of them Phineas was also cutting too easily through the snow in her bare god damned feet. He sighed. Under other circumstances Ulrich would have complained, tried to start a fight to get out of his own head, but he just felt tired. Siegfried shimmied up to rest their face under his ear. Agatha did not seem inclined to continue the conversation. Just as well; he couldn't remember what he had wanted to accomplish here anyway. There was not a lot to say.

"Hey," Nova spoke up. Phineas stopped, still burning in the deep snow, and the others came up on either side. In front of them was a shallow valley, and in the bottom of that valley was a cabin.

It was massive, as far as mountain cabins go; more of a lodge, Phineas decided grimly. Way too big for one person. Unless that person was just some kind of asshole, which they probably were, if this was their guy. He'd given them directions and they'd passed the landmarks along the short hike from town, but Phineas had been following her own view of the bizarre presence in the distant fog. She relaxed her eyes, exhaled slowly and the energy around her kaleidoscoped into vision.

Always, she looked for hers first. Ulrich and Siegfried, tangled together by a frayed, almost vestigial bond that had been stretched too thin, shone blue and silver on her left. As was the way with this sight, Siegfried lost their ferret shape and became the magnetic waves of Ulrich's spirit, wrapped close and quiet by silver webbing until it needed to be bigger, be noticed. Ritz had no bond to anything and almost no energy about her at all, just like the inky blemish that leaked above Ulrich's eye she barely radiated enough to be visible through Ulrich's coat. This was actually normal for Ritz, but it was still unnerving as hell.

Agatha was bright cyan and enormous at her right hand, persistently reaching out for anything she could connect with like a broken plasma globe. Her bond with Vane was new and a little transient since they left had Decodenn, like fresh scar tissue, but Phineas was relieved to see it unharmed by whatever had been done to her daemon. Her colors were...more muted than normal, though. Phineas was uncomfortably reminded of looking at a television with the sound turned down and she felt Nova shift as she got angry again. She turned back to the cabin.

No bond that she could see, no film-negative daemonless patches wandering around. There was a daemon spirit in there, but it was alone. It was _awful._

One time Jo's cat had thrown up on the porch after eating a whole bed of different pansies, and the monstrosity in the cabin was colorful the same way that had been. She'd been following it like a beacon since they left town. She hoped she was mistaken, that maybe she was just misreading the energy signatures through all the interference, but there wasn't much room to doubt what she was looking at. This guy was stitching together daemons.

Nova's yellow, many-eyed tendrils drifted into her peripheral vision like seaweed, the only part she could see of her own mutated soul billowing behind her. Of _course_ this maniac would want her and hers. They were exactly the kind of thing somebody like this would be looking for.

She blinked the excess light away from her vision.

"What is it?" Ulrich asked. She told him, in charged tones she realized too late would be uncomfortable to listen to, what she saw.

"Oh." Ulrich said, only wincing slightly. He took a very long breath, and then he let it out.

"Ours, are they-" Agatha started.

"No." Phineas growled, Nova shuffling restlessly behind her with the effort of keeping their disgust in check. She ran her hand through her hair, softened up her tone. "Just asleep. They're here."

Agatha didn't seem convinced. She stared at the cabin for a long moment, blinking through what Phineas assumed were various overlays.

"He can see us." Agatha said softly. Ulrich side eyed her.

"Why do you say that?"

"He waved at me."

* * *

Bothering with stealth while descending the slope to the cabin itself seemed pointless. As they neared, Phineas was put off by how pleasant it looked from outside. There was a billow of smoke puffing from a chimney, and the windows were an inviting orange against the dreary greys of the worsening blizzard. Even as cold pricked her toes her instincts were repulsed. It was like looking at a cinnamon roll knowing a razor blade had been baked in.

This close to something so...wrong, she couldn't ignore the rancid energy spiralling out from whatever kind of monster did things like this. The colors invaded her normal vision, the mutilated daemons' desperate reaching for reprieve from their existence clutched at her own soul, pulling her out of her skin and threatening to drag her under. As the entourage approached the tidy footpath to the front door she wrapped an arm around Nova the way she had when they'd landed that morning, digging her fingertips painfully into him while he drove his talons through the skin of her shoulders. She felt her pulse welling up steady and grounding around his claws.

The door was unlocked.

Inside, caught in the middle of taking a cast iron kettle from the fire, a grinning man in suspenders greeted them over his shoulder.

"Oh good, y'all made it. Go on and have a seat."

One hand, shoved into a red-checked oven mitt, carried the kettle to his table. The other carried a bell.


	4. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello is anyone still here even

The cabin's orange-lit interior sears Phineas' vision, like everything is on fire, and she isn't sure if it's real light or the rancid glow of so much energy spoiled by fear. Awful things had happened here, and by all accounts are continuing to happen while this man smiles at them over his cast iron kettle. He's short and wide and boxy, his skin flushed nearly crimson and his smile a permanent crack in his face, like something's _painfully_ hysterical. He's wearing a red flannel with suspenders and khakis over pink houseslippers and, to hold the kettle, an oven mitt that looks like a yellow chicken.

Phineas hates him for the same reasons she hated Cold Hazard; the thing she's looking at is hardly a person, it's a substitute, it's a light on an anglerfish and the fact that it's looking corporeally back at her even as she watches the environment's energy roil and burst around like lava makes Mana recoil in her chest. It's inherently wrong, something here is _broken._ Mana, bouncing between Phineas and Nova perched on her shoulder, is very much alert now like something has drawn her up. Phineas grips Nova's wing tight enough to hurt her own hand, and she knows she's started bleeding under his talons but she can hardly feel it while she savagely tries to hold herself together. Mana screams and screams like being in this room is hurting her, is twisting her.

Fortunately, Mana is only part of Phineas. The rest of her is fucking furious.

" **Fix them**." she demands in a voice that rattles the windows in their panes. The fire in the hearth surges, instantly incinerates all the kindling there and dies, seemingly taking all the life from the cabin with it. The cold that sets in is like a physical weight.

Agatha and Ulrich flinch away on either side of her, even used to her commanding not quite used to _this._ The man doesn't react at all. The wind picks up outside, scraping louder against the house in the sudden blue hush.

Phineas feels a pang of guilt for her friends; she hadn't expected brokenspectre tones. Somewhere in her, unrest wells up under the blanket of her rage; anything that can affect Mana is very bad news.

The man giggles and sets the kettle down on the table.

"You know, you're awful small to be carrying around something like _that."_ He snaps his fingers and the fire roars back to life, the hellfire tones of the cabin flaring again. He pulls his own chair and seats himself. In front of him suddenly are four mugs of something that Phineas can't recall seeing him put together.

"She appears to be just the right size." Ulrich speaks up, overtaking her the way he does when they dance. Phineas gratefully shifts her stance in deference of the new lead; if she speaks too much now she's liable to bring the house down around them.

The man nods and it's condescending enough to grate on Ulrich's nerves as he strides forward ahead of the others. He unbuttons his coat, sweating in the firelight, and Siegfried watches the man through one narrow black eye. He wiggles his fingers at them.

"And you," The man starts. "how very-"

"What is it you want." Ulrich interjects flatly. A burst of laughter this time and the entire crew flinches in varying degrees. By now Ulrich is used to feeling it when Phineas laughs, a brief warm buzz of alcohol passing between his ears and over his spine that he's grown to enjoy more than he cares to admit. When this man laughs it's just as substantial, but it's the shock of biting into rotten fruit.

"I forget, humankinds have so much less time." the man says. He shakes his head, clicks his tongue. "You get so impatient."

He moves the hand holding the silver bell and Ulrich's fingers twitch towards Glucksacche, although he is not sure what he would do with it. The man simply sets the bell on the wood laquer tabletop so he can sip from his mug, showing no indication he is aware of the tension.

"The thing is," he drawls, "your daemons should have dusted as soon as I rang my little bell." his smile oscillates to something like apology. "This does happen sometimes, see most visitors we get around here don't _have_ such. Interesting bonds." his eyes roam over Ulrich, hanging on Siegfried long enough that Ulrich swears he can feel it. Siegfried is more tense against him than usual, and unnaturally silent. He gestures in a frustrated sort of way at Phineas and Agatha.

"I don't even know what the hell to _make_ of you two."

"What _is_ it you _want?_ " Ulrich demands again. He reaches up to flick down the diamond lens on his glasses, is momentarily disoriented as always by the rush of color in one eye, is most deeply troubled by the fact that the man has no visible aura or hidden daemon himself.

"Y'all are gonna leave your daemons here."

Ulrich recovers from his reel at the statement in record time

"I do not think so."

"Think what you like," The man strokes the filigree running over the bell, drawing all eyes there. "People here gotta pay their dues, sometimes, but if there's travelers coming through ain't no point subjecting our own to it." He sighs, his eternal smile dimming slightly. "You really should have some tea, it'll make things-"

" _ **Enough.** "_ Phineas thunders. Agatha twists Vane out of the way as the windows to the cabin shatter. Ulrich turns instinctively and loses whatever he's about to say because, somehow, he can't tell where Nova stops and Phineas' shoulder starts. Even through the extra lens they're just a bright spot, like staring at the sun. He jerks away, willing his left eye to readjust.

"Aw now see- You know how hard it is to get glass up here??" the man rubs his hand over his face, regaining his composure.

"Listen," he says. "I don't much care for explaining myself to strangers-"

"You should start." Ulrich draws the revolver, levels it at the man's head.

"Go ahead," the man drawls, and seems to want to say something else but Ulrich takes the invitation and plants a bullet squarely in the man's wrist.

It's a beautifully aimed shot and it's grisly, the skin and bone liquidating and spraying the table in far too much viscera for the wound placement. Ulrich has the awful thought he's not a human so much as skin bursting with guts and blood and tissue, all piled together like cotton in a stuffed animal. There's an incongruously mundane sound when chunks of his hand fall into his mug, exactly like a dropped sugar cube, though after the gunshot Ulrich sees it more than he hears it. He'd forgotten to turn down his hearing aid and his ear is ringing angrily.

The man giggles, hardly registers the hit. He maintains eye contact with Ulrich as he grasps his destroyed hand with his other, twists with a muted crack that violently turns Ulrich's stomach. He tosses the appendage into the fire behind him with little fanfare, and that's that.

"Don't need to tell _you_ twice huh?" he says, resting his chin in his good hand. He holds up his ruined wrist and Ulrich watches dumbly as tendons and bones and skin extend out from the stump, writhing and snapping like snakes before twisting together. Even the regeneration is _violent_ , the tendrils' movement like they're devouring each other, each smaller altercation producing a larger victor until enough death culminates in the shape of a new hand. In the back of his mind, watching the fingernails grow and crack and yellow, Ulrich's sluggish analysis finally gives him an answer.

" _You're_ a daemon." Ulrich breathes. Phineas and Agatha shift behind him.

"What-" Agatha stammers. The man continues to grin, and now the hellish light in the room has changed, the shadows look wrong. Ulrich holsters his gun and staggers backwards, instinctively wanting to put space between himself and this, the-

There's a muted breaking sound beneath their feet, beneath the house; the heart of the planet is tearing apart and Agatha's grip is painful on his arm as he's wrenched backwards out of the shattering cabin. Phineas flies past them and she and Nova are fuzzy in his vision, their forms bleeding together in one eye and into a white fire through the augmented lens,

they're both going the wrong _way_

_"Wait!_ " Ulrich screams, probably at Agatha but maybe at the shaking cabin too. The daemon man shrieks but he and Phineas have devolved entirely into a furious mess of light Ulrich can't decipher, especially as Agatha hauls him through the doorway before it shudders and smashes inward.

The world is coming apart outside, too. The snow and the trees are making impossible geometry as the mountain tears itself apart, and they're _moving_ , the air is changing and Ulrich's stomach keeps dropping like they're rising and falling impossibly quickly. He's spellbound by the cabin, dumbly aware Phineas and Nova are still inside, and

something old tugs,

"o-oh," he stammers. There's snow in his boots, and regrown roots breaking apart in his chest.

"Come _on!_ " Agatha is valiantly dragging him backwards, still, while he watches the foundation under the cabin wrench itself to smithereens, splintering the building to pieces. The flash of whatever the fuck is going on in there peeks out through the doomed structure, and, also, and

His arm is yanked sharply down, he's flung to the ground as Agatha gets him wherever it was she wanted him to go, and Ulrich finally realizes through the din that an enormous fissure had been raging towards them. It stops at the foot of the plateau she'd dragged them onto and begins to widen. In front of them, the earth opens up and swallows everything. Something smaller snaps. There's a short sound only Ulrich hears even through the ringing in his ear, a tight, sharp intake of breath like there isn't time enough for a real reaction. He paws uselessly at his chest as he feels Siegfried falling further and further away.

Apparently satisfied, the rumbling stops, the sense of motion in Ulrich's belly disappears, and the mountain is still again. Nobody moves for a moment.

Agatha sinks heavily to her knees next to him, settling with Vane still draped around her shoulders.

"Phineas," she says, in the most concerned monotone she can manage.

"Siegfried," Ulrich says quietly. Agatha turns to look him over and, indeed, finds a significant lack of Siegfried.

"God," Agatha drones, " _damn_ it."

 

* * *

 

 

Since they'd been together, Agatha had never been awake while Vane wasn't, but she'd never thought about it until that bell rang and he dropped in front of her. She'd noticed other daemons also seemed to work like this, sharing a conscious state with their partners. Her and Vane's connection was strange in several important ways that had made her assume the rules others played by sort of didn't apply. She had no frame of reference for that, still, but what could now be confirmed was with Vane's sleep came a lack of emotion so intense it was almost physical. An entire system blinking out of existence, subroutines and breather lights she hadn't noticed before going dark. It was exactly how she'd felt in Decodenn, before, but worse now because she knew what was missing, felt its precise shape being ripped out of her. She would despair if she had the resources for it.

Phineas had brought her out of it before and she would again, Agatha was sure in a matter-of-fact way even if she couldn't reach any feelings about it. So she'd hoisted her heart over her shoulders and followed her commander up the mountain.

Agatha still wasn't sure what exactly had happened in the cabin. Ulrich had said something about the man being a daemon and then Phineas (more Mana than either Phineas or Nova, really,) had screamed past to descend upon him. Phineas could handle whatever was happening, of course she could, so getting Ulrich away from the freaky demigod bullshit had become the priority.

Except now they are in the snow, on an unfamiliar mountain, and Phineas and Nova both are gone. And Siegfried, which frankly makes Agatha more afraid-adjacent than anything else happening. The others could handle themselves, and she can sense that they're still alive. But Ulrich.

She isn't sure what to expect. Agatha has seen humankinds and daemons separated before; it's loud, usually. Screaming, writhing, sobbing. She's told it's both physically and emotionally painful, an assault on every faculty. But Ulrich is silent and still beside her, staring down where the cabin had been not five minutes before. She gives him a little longer to come out of it, but as the silence gnaws onward Agatha feels impatience sneaking in.

"Hey," Agatha ventures finally. "Ulrich?"

To her relief, as it is right now, he makes a soft noise of acknowledgement.

"We need to get out of here."

"And go where," he says quietly. "And do what?" Agatha stands, irritated. Deadened like this, all her negative emotions tighten like a hot incomprehensible coal in her chest, feeding back on themselves with nowhere to go. There's nothing to hit, unfortunately, so she tries to find whatever process had made her comply with Monterey's code of conduct when all she'd wanted was to murder him. She's out of practice.

"Back to Lucky Noon." she grits out, adjusting Vane and thudding her foot against Ulrich's lower back. It startles him.

"Do you _mind."_ he snaps, craning to look up at her.

"Do you think you're the only person having a hard time right now?" Agatha says evenly, fire searing in her circuits. "If we stay here that thing could come back and finish us off, or, just, _look at this place!_ " she gestures clumsily, Vane's tail swinging behind her. "The fucking mountain BROKE! I'm not gonna explain to Phineas that I let you get crushed by a tree or some shit as soon as she turned her back for ten minutes. Get your ass up out of that snow."

Ulrich gives her a glare that would be withering if she had anything to wither. She glares right back at his stupid fucking face and doesn't feel bad about the intrusive thought that he might listen better if she broke his nose. After a moment his eyes fall over Vane, and his expression softens. He rubs his eyes under his glasses then stands, brushing snow from his pants.

"Right. Sorry." he mutters. He slips one hand into the pocket where Ritz rests. Agatha doesn't have it in her to feel sympathy, which only makes her angrier.

"We don't have time for th-"

" _Sorry._ " Ulrich says curtly. He buttons his coat back up to the chin and slides his hands in his other pockets, like he's just noticed the cold. "How do you propose we get back to Noon? We cannot go through town." He sighs. "And Noon can't help us anyway, even if we could somehow make it down the mountain they can't come back with us to collect the others."

"They might be able to explain what's going on?" Agatha ventures. "Have you. Ever..."

"If I knew what was happening here I would tell you." Ulrich says flatly.

" _Thanks so-_ " Agatha's cut off by a gust of wind so sharp even _she_ feels it, and they both startle at the sound of frozen branches snapping around them. It ebbs slightly before returning stronger than before, and with a flurry of fresh snow this time. Agatha feels her hydraulics thickening. She does some math.

"That storm, you said," Ulrich murmurs tentatively, unconsciously crowding closer to her and Vane. Agatha's stare is somewhere in the clouds. They're dark.


End file.
